


Pickpocket

by PuppetMaster55



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Angst and Feels, Pickpocket AU, Sad AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-20
Updated: 2013-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:41:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25487902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PuppetMaster55/pseuds/PuppetMaster55
Summary: His friends weren't there when the accident happened, but his parents definitely wereAnd now Danny's on the run
Relationships: Danny Fenton & Jazz Fenton, Danny Fenton & Vlad Masters
Kudos: 36





	1. Chapter 1

He didn’t know where he was.

Well, that wasn’t exactly right. He knew where he was (probably-Wisconsin), but if someone asked him to give specific details, like a street name or even the name of the town, then they were out of luck. Although he would proudly proclaim knowledge of the exact date, having read it off of one of the newspaper he’d ‘procured’ from the vendor that morning.

But he didn’t know where he was.

It wasn’t home; there was no home for him anymore. Not since…

But more to the point, he literally had no idea where he was. It was an alleyway, that much was obvious, but it wasn’t _his_ alleyway. There was no green door leading into the backroom of a stir-fry bar, nor was there the familiar black cat he’d sometimes fed with what little food he’d scrounged up and couldn’t bring himself to eat.

Worst of all, there wasn’t the small overhang that he’d taken to using as a makeshift shelter for the past four days.

“Dammit.” The curse came out without thought. Two months ago, he wouldn’t even know that word existed; now, curse words were flowing from his mouth easier than water through a pipe. “Have to try the shelter now.”

Of course, to get in the shelter, he first needed the fifteen dollars they charged to put strays and runaways up for the night. Walking out onto the street, Danny took notice of his clothes; at a shirt that once upon a time had been pure white but now rested on something that could be called yellow at best, and brown at worst; at a pair of jeans that were showing signs of wear and tear from the lack of washing; at reddish-brown sneakers that were looking worse for wear, but could survive for the rest of the year if need be.

He hadn’t looked at himself in a mirror lately, but he knew that he didn’t look any better than his clothes; almost two months without any real shower or change of clothes had left him smelling more than a little ripe. His hair had accumulated little bits of dirt, grease and grime from entire nights spent sleeping in trees, on soft patches of dirt, and in the least smelly corners of alleys if he could manage it. His skin, what little of it shone through the thin layer of grit, was paler than ash, and he knew that there were dark bags hanging deep beneath his eyes from two months without a restful night’s sleep. To put it bluntly, he looked like hell, and felt every bit of it.

On the plus side, however, Danny could now say that he was the greatest pickpocket in the world, using these freaky ( _scary terrifying beyond words_ ) powers to steal wallets and purses from even the hardest of targets. He always returned them immediately, putting them back where they were, but without whatever loose cash and change had been in them. He needed that money more, to pay for bus tickets, halfway houses, and even to buy the rare meal when he couldn’t go to the soup kitchens anymore. His pare- _Jack and Maddie_ were skilled at tracking ghosts; that wasn’t even taking those men in white suits into consideration. They were the reason he had to move around so much, always finding him so fast.

_Him!_

The mark was a middle-aged man, gray hair done up in a wolf-tail and wearing a suit fitted and far more fancy than even the wealthiest mark Danny’d ever seen. This man was a whale, and Danny was the shark that would rob him blind. He followed the man for several blocks, staring from a distance (as his invisibility didn’t hide the stench) as the mark went into several stores, making small expenditures from an obscenely fancy ( _could fetch a couple hundred for the wallet alone in the Underground_ ) wallet, which was then kept in the left inner breast pocket.

It was like the man was _begging_ to have his wallet stolen, with how he almost telegraphed and exaggerated every movement with it. It almost made Danny suspicious that the guy was a cop in disguise, except he’d taken from those twice now and both times gotten away clean.

Floating in the air, Danny, still invisible, sped forward to the end of the block; he’d wait until the man was passing him by when Danny would reach out a grab the wallet right from the pocket it was kept in. Only this time, the wallet wouldn’t be returned.

His hand was halfway through the man’s torso when his arm, his _invisible, intangible arm_ , was grabbed. With a yelp, Danny flew into existence, the shock causing his powers to short out and leave him visible and tangible to the man’s wrath.

“Gotcha, you little thief!” The man’s words were snarled with a calm malevolence, filled with years of deathly threats both carried out and yet to be followed through on, and it terrified Danny. This was the look of someone angry at the world, and wouldn’t care if it started burning beneath his feet.

“Like hell you do!” He didn’t know where the words came from, and barely recognized the voice as his own, cracked and rough from lack of use. Danny went intangible again, only to be on the receiving end of the shock of his life, literally. It was like a brick wall had slammed directly into his entire being through the man’s grip on his arm.

“Like hell I do,” the man repeated the words back at Danny, an assurance in his voice that was made doubly so when the man’s eyes glowed a bright, unearthly red. “Now why don’t we start with introductions, little ghost child.”

“Danny.” Just Danny. He’d never considered any sort of name for his _other self_ , and the name Fenton was now a way for the white-suited men and _them_ to find him. When the man realized that that was all that he was going to get out of the boy, he nodded.

“Vlad Plasmius, but in this form I am Vlad Masters.” And _why_ the man- Vlad Masters felt the need to be so open towards Danny was beyond the fourteen-year-old’s understanding.

“You too?” The words tumbled out of Danny’s mouth before he registered that he’d said anything. “You’re part ghost too?”

“ _Part_ ghost?” The words were repeated, Masters’ voice incredulous. “Too?”

Masters said something else, but it was lost on Danny when a flash of pure white entered his vision. His eyes darted to the side, following the flash to its’ source: a man wearing a pure white suit and dark sunglasses, muttering something to an earpiece while facing Danny and Masters.

 _Crap!_ How did they find him?! How did they _keep on_ finding him?!

He had to escape, had to start running, or they’d catch him.

Masters finally noticed Danny’s distracted look and followed his gaze to the white-suited man. Masters’ grip on Danny’s arm loosened slightly, and the teen took the opportunity to go intangible, phasing out of the man’s grip before darting down the street, aiming to hide out in the nearest alley. He ignored Masters’ cry of “wait!” because there was no talking with these men. Danny made it to the alley entrance before he slammed into a rock wall of a massive white-suited man, the wallet falling from his fingers and onto the ground below.

“Found you, ghost,” the man intoned, one of his hands wielding a fountain pen.

“Found, not caught,” Danny replied, hands in the air as he backtracked out of the alley. Just a few more feet….

“Correction: caught you.” The voice came from behind, hard and clipped and filled with just enough angry disgust that it had Danny flinching out of fear. _Dammit!_ He’d forgotten about the second white-suit. From behind there was a whirring noise, one Danny was far, _far_ too familiar with, and Danny felt his _other self_ take control; felt as he reacted on instinct, arms flying up in defense suddenly glowing the bright green of ectoplasm. He could only watch in shock as both arms were flung up in defense towards both white-suits, like he was telling them to physically back away, only to fire glowing green ectoplasmic discs that slammed both men backwards – one into the sparse crowd and one into the alley, his white suit now covered in mud and grease and god-knows-what-else. This was his chance, and Danny took it; he could figure out what he’d done later, now was time to run, and keep running, because this town was compromised. He could never return to this place, now that they knew he’d been here.

Danny felt his legs vanish as they turned into the more streamlined wisp of a tail, and he began to float. Reaching deep down, focusing on that small part of him that screamed _vanish_ , Danny barely felt it as he became invisible, intent instead of flying as far away from this town as he could.

It wasn’t until several days later, when he finally stopped running just past what he suspected was the border into Michigan, that Danny remembered that Masters guy, and even then he was dismissed as a ghost hiding out as a human (not the first he’d encountered, since bartering with that shapeshifter to help lay down a false trail for the white-suits to follow instead of Danny himself).

Next time, Danny grumbled to himself as he found himself scrounging out of the dumpster behind the first supermarket he’d come across, he’d make sure that he didn’t accidentally _drop_ the super-expensive wallet (filled with what must have been at least enough cash to ensure that Danny would have a couple days’ worth of decent meals) before getting the hell out of dodge.

He just hoped that it was only the white-suits that found him this time, and not his pa- _Jack and Maddie_.


	2. Chapter 2

“ _Ghost!_ ”

The painfully familiar scream of his D- of _Jack_ jolted Danny into action. Chairs were knocked back and tables upturned as he created defenses in this tiny soup kitchen. He had to be careful, of course, when fighting back, because there were still innocent people in the same room. He’d gotten over having to fight his pa- _Jack and Maddie_ after the fifth time they’d found him. They were getting better at tracking him.

Danny thought they’d given up hunting him, given that it had been a little over six months since _that night._ They had to stop hunting him at some point, right? He had to be getting better at fading into the background, right?

“I’m not a ghost!” Danny shouted back, and the table he was hiding behind was hit with blasts that sent it skidding into – and past – Danny. “I’m your son! Why won’t you believe me?!”

“You murdered my baby!” Mo- _Maddie_ yelled back. “I won’t rest until you’re a sizzling pile of ectoplasmic goo and I can finally put his body to the rest he deserves!”

There was no reasoning with them; not now, not the five times they’d found him before.

Danny looked for an out, an escape that he could use, and was rewarded with what looked like a back door peeking out from the small kitchen behind the serving bar. He moved, leaping over the bar, hands charged with ectoplasm sending out bursts into the trays of food; chili, macaroni, lasagna, and more all exploded outward, coating the entire room a motley of colors – and forcing Jack and Maddie to duck for cover. Danny landed on the other side of the serving bar, nearly falling on top of the kinda-cute volunteer girl who’d taken to using the bar as cover to hide behind. He put his finger to his lips in a silent shushing movement, before making a break for the door.

“Stop!” The cry came from behind, but Danny didn’t heed it, only ducking down, rolling along the ground as a blast from the Fenton Bazooka rang through the air above his head. Maddie always was the better shot of the two. But he didn’t stop; he kept running until he couldn’t anymore, and then let his _other half_ take over so he could fly the rest of the way.

This entire part of Colorado was now a no-go zone. He couldn’t return to this part of the state anytime soon, or even ever again. He’d try Arizona this time; Vegas was just big enough to hide someone as down on their luck as Danny was. There was also the added side effect of bigger marks to steal from. If he was lucky, Vegas could save him from dumpster-diving until Christmas.


	3. Chapter 3

Vegas was a terrible idea. _Why_ he thought that the one place in the world filled with more security cameras and armed guards was beyond him.

Danny stumbled down the hallway, one hand pressed against his side in a futile attempt to stop the bleeding. He was in his _other half,_ and had a big, gaping wound dripping ectoplasm and blood from between his hands, painting the lush carpeting in a mix of dull red blood and glowing neon ectoplasm. It had been two weeks since he’d last seen Jack and Maddie in Colorado, and he’d foolishly thought he’d been safe.

Danny couldn’t have been more wrong.

A week ago, he’d reached Vegas. Five days ago, Danny had snuck into one of the hotels and had the first real shower he’d had in _months_ (it had taken the better part of an hour to scrub away every inch of grit, grime, and dirt, and even longer to tame the wild mess that had become his hair; afterward he’d stared at the scar on his side from _that night_ ). Two days ago, the white-suits had appeared in town. Twenty minutes ago, they’d finally found him.

There were only two in the team he’d stumbled across, but that didn’t mean that the twenty other white-suits he’d seen weren’t close by. Those two he’d been able to fend off pretty quickly, but not before one of them had used those pen-blasters to shoot open the scar he had from _that night_ and called for reinforcement. Twice now he’d gone through walls, switched floors, and yet the white-suits _still_ kept popping up right where he was going. With a glance at his wound, Danny went intangible, sliding halfway though the wall before going back to standing. Where he’d gone through the wall was left a green-red stain. Well, that answered how they were finding him in this hotel, but it didn’t answer how he would escape.

Danny rounded a corner, wincing at the dull pain he felt from his wound. If it wasn’t for the fact that he’d still be wounded, Danny would have gone back to being human and slipping in with the crowds of tourists and gamblers that were moving along down in the casino below. Instead, he was left having to-

There was a shriek, and he was jolted out of his thoughts as a maid stood several feet away, screaming at the top of her lungs. _Why…_ oh. His wound. For all that there was _so much_ green there was just as much red ( _can’t believe_ won’t _believe that I can bleed to death how can I I’m already-_ ).

“Found him!” Danny bit back a curse as he went intangible, letting gravity pull him down, down, down. Floor after floor went, by, and Danny turned, wincing again as the movement jostled his injury, and he went from falling to flying, speeding through the floors of the hotel until he reached the casino below. There, he curved, gaining speed as he moved towards the front doors.

At this point, it didn’t matter whether or not he was invisible; he was moving fast enough that all anyone would really catch on camera was a dark blur, and national news hadn’t sprung up of a missing ghost boy, so there was at least that small mercy. But that was the only mercy he had since, as Vegas luck would have it, there were a dozen of the white-suits standing in a line between him and the freedom that lay beyond the doors. Each one of them reached into their inner suit pockets, pulling out and unfolding those pen-blasters, before pointing them at him.

 _Oh, crap!_ Danny swerved, curling in a too-tight u-turn as they opened fire. Blood and ectoplasm splattered the now-screaming masses, and Danny was crashing down into the panicking masses, his _other self_ vanishing as he almost reverted back to human. The crowd parted as the white-suits descended, and Danny was trapped. Suddenly the room seemed _too_ big, too wide-open, as he stumbled through rows of slot machines, white-suits in pursuit. There was no cover, no small spaces for Danny to slip into and hide until the danger went away. Worse still, the white-suits were growing in number, more of them appearing from each side, until Danny was trapped in a circle of them, each pointing their pen-blaster directly at him.

“There’s nowhere to run, ghost,” one of them said, and Danny started laughing. Every time they went after him, they kept spouting cliché lines that were just _begging_ to be made fun of.

“There’s always somewhere to run,” he replied, and both hands glowed bright with charged ectoplasm that shot out, curving and curling until he was hidden beneath a glowing green dome. With no time to spare, Danny dropped down, slipping through the floor below as the pen-blasters shot repeatedly at the shield-like dome.

Now in the dark basement, Danny’s laughter trailed off, but he couldn’t stop giggling. He was shot and bleeding and might be about to die for real and he _couldn’t stop giggling_. He didn’t stop when he flew through the hotel basement, appearing in the basement of the building next door and then flying out and into the mid-day sky. He was still going strong as he flew west, going towards California and the coast. And still the giggles persisted even as he dropped out of the sky, crashing into the desert and just laid there in the burning sand with nothing to be seen for miles. He didn’t stop, not even as the giggles broke down into sobs, until there were no more tears to be shed, and he was just left laying there, tired and hurt and scared and wanting nothing more than to be _home_ , a place that would sooner shoot him dead than welcome him.

Danny was well and truly alone as the world tried to kill him.


	4. Chapter 4

It looked _just like_ Danny.

She’d known, on some level, that it would look like him. Had been informed by her parents – those few times in the beginning they’d returned home – that it was, and had taken over his body. But seeing it in person, watching as it walked through entire cities with the face of her _brother_ …

Jazz would be lying if she ever thought he didn’t hate it at some point, stealing her brother away from them. Making sure that thei– _her_ parents were never home that first year.

But she was a psychologist, someone dedicated to listening to both sides of the story, and never taking sides; so she, by all rights, had to learn to look past all the hatred and confusion, and form her own opinion of it. So she watched from afar, keeping as much distance as she could, and watched it interacted with the world around it.

And she saw _Danny_ , scared and terrified and running away from men in white suits. She saw him run and saw him _transform_ , becoming something _not_ human. White hair and green eyes that glowed so brightly she could see them from a block away. A black jumpsuit, the inverted coloration of the same one Danny had had in his locker down in the FentonWorks lab.

Again and again she followed her parents, watching from afar as they went after the ghost that looked far too much, _acted_ far too much like her brother. The pattern continued, her parents going off across the country after a sighting, her following, and standing back as she watched from a block away the encounters, for nearly two years. Until…

It was Chicago, amidst the abandoned steel mills, that she finally approached it.

As Danny, it looked older than before. A little taller, a lot more gangly. None of the baby fat that had been there before. And thinner, far too thin to be considered healthy, like it wasn’t able to get a good meal on a regular basis.

And it was bleeding, oozing a thick red and green that reminded Jazz, morbidly, of Christmas. The wound was across it’s back, and it was crawling on it’s belly, shuffling along the ground using it’s shoulders, moving towards a fallen backpack laying on the far side of the half-demolished mill, forgotten by its’ owner. The Danny-thing had noticed her walking towards it – and how could it not, when her footsteps were the only sound outside of it’s labored breathing – and panicked, pushing up onto hands and knees and painfully grunting as it moved towards the backpack.

Jazz stopped moving, and began to speak, using soft tones she’d once read were soothing to startled animals. “You’re okay, you’re doing just fine. I’m not going to hurt you.”

It stopped, and she can see it visibly shaking, shoulders trembling. Maybe it recognized her voice? She got down onto all fours, making herself of equal height to it. Her bag was shifted into her hands, and she made sure to let it know exactly what she was doing.

“My bag is moving into my hands, and I’m getting down onto the ground, exactly like you are. I’m not going to hurt you.” It’s shoulders didn’t stop trembling, but neither did it start moving again. “I’m going to move towards you, okay? My bag is filled with first aid supplies. I just want to help. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Keep repeating those words, keep saying them until they become real.

“I’m certified in all types of first aid, you know. I can look at that if you’ll let me.” Slowly, she got closer and closer to it. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Keep talking, she’d read, talk about anything and everything.

“Sam and Tucker are in their junior year of high school now. They still keep in touch with me, so I know what’s going on. Valerie Gray is friends with them now, ever since her dad lost that lawsuit. She dated Tucker for a while, but they called it off. Valerie and Sam don’t get along so well, even after all this time, and Tucker has to play mediator a lot.” She was babbling, really, but it was necessary to make sure it stayed still as she gently pulled up the dirtied shirt, looking at a long slice against the skin that was partially scabbed over. She sat down and opened her bag. “I’m going to apply disinfectant and clean the wound, okay? Tucker asked me out. We’re kind of dating right now. I mean, we’re going on dates, together, and that’s it. I don’t know if he expects us to be serious or anything.”

The Danny-thing was still shaking, but it was a nervous sort of twitchy, like it wanted nothing more than to not be touched by her. Jazz took that as a good sign, and began to clean the wound. She continued to talk, telling it about the time Sam had changed the menu, and about the giant wasp that had appeared in the school once. She talked about the week Tucker had stayed up late each night playing Doomed, about when Sam had figured out that the guidance counselor, Ms. Spectra, was in cahoots with a ghost. She spoke about everything, but their parents.

And then it was over. The Danny-thing was patched up, the slice as closed up as she could get it – Jazz’s skill at sewing wasn’t perfect, but the stitches applied here were competent enough for it to survive until it needed to have them removed – and she was finishing up wrapping the gauze around it when…

“Why?”

“Because,” she began, knowing that her answer would hold just as much weight as the question that had been posed. “I don’t really know if you’re my brother or not. And if you aren’t, that doesn’t mean you don’t deserve a life too.”

She stands up and straightens her shirt, before laying it’s own back down over the wound, hiding it from view.

“Besides, you don’t seem like the kind of ghost that would take someone else’s life intentionally.” _And it isn’t something Danny would ever do_ , was left unsaid. She didn’t know if it caught the subtext or not, but she knew that was all she was going to get out of it.

Picking up her bag, Jazz walked away for a final time, resolved to never go looking for the Danny-thing again. She never looked back.


	5. Chapter 5

Snow came down from the sky like little cottonballs, light and fluffy in the air, and bathing the world in white and light. The sky itself, despite being a dark gray, instead looked like a dirty white against the snow-covered world.

Danny watched the snowfall from within the castle, practically glaring the snow into nonexistence (but not actually, since the one winter during his first year, when Danny had learned that he could shoot ectobeams from his eyes and cleared a swath of sidewalk ten feet long – and through three feet of snow).

From down the hall, a faint clicking noise started up, and Danny tensed, hand reaching for a backpack that wasn’t there. A half-second of panic as he tried to remember where his backpack was (three hallways away and down a floor, hidden in the back corner of a closet filled with dust-coated boxes of clothes; all of which were behind where the footsteps were coming from), when he remembered: this was a safe place. He didn’t have to run anymore, didn’t have to worry over his shoulder every second of every day.

“Daniel?” He flinched at hearing his name, but stood his ground. “I was wondering where you’d gone off to.”

“Places.” It was true enough: even though this was a safe haven, staying too long would spoil it.

“I figured.” A pause, and the shoes clicked across the floor, approaching the window he was pressed against. “It’s been nearly two months since you left.”

“Not really hearing a question there, Dracula.” From behind him, Vlad snorted, but came to stand beside Danny.

“Quaint.” Danny moved his gaze away from the snowfall, to face.

“Oh my god, what are you _wearing_?” Vlad was dressed up all in red, trimmed with white fur that looked like it lined the inside of the tracksuit. Around his chest there was a thick black leather belt, buckled at the center of his stomach.

“Charity function at a children’s hospital.” A gloved hand reached up and scratched at the scraggly white beard. “Had to grow the beard naturally. Dratted thing won’t stop _itching_.”

“There is no children’s hospital within a hundred miles of here.” Danny would know; he’d stolen medical supplies from nearby medical facilities enough times over the years.

Vlad frowned – and was Danny glad he could see the way the beard shifted and bunched over itself. “Of course not. This was for O'Bleness Memorial in Ohio. I was visiting for Christmas.”

Danny scoffed at the word, disgust clear on his face as he turned to face the elder man completely. “Ugh. Not to the charity thing, that’s… weirdly good of you, to be honest. But the Christmas.”

“Not a paladin of goodness and holiday cheer, are you?” Vlad acerbically commented, absentmindedly scratching his beard. Once he noticed what he was doing, he set his hand against his side with a snarl.

“God no. Hate the damn season with the fiery passion of a thousand supernovas.” Danny crossed his arms, and tapped his head against the windowpane, eyes glowing a soft green. “Nothing good ever happens on Christmas. Not now, not ever!”

“Bad memories, then?” Vlad fixed Danny with an insufferable look. “Had one bad Christmas back when you were really young, and it ruined the holiday for you, did it? What, see daddy set up all the presents under the tree and learn Santa was a lie?”

Danny snorted, an ugly sound fitted with an uglier sneer. “I wish. Dad believed Santa existed, Mom didn’t. Two scientist parents debating the existence of the jolly red man year after year? Yeah, Christmas was a real _joy_ back there.”

“Boo-hoo, your family was arguing.” Vlad mocked. “Like that hasn’t happened a million times before to countless others, and will happen a million times more by the time they die. That’s what families do, idiot boy! They–”

Danny snapped, throwing a punch that glowed a bright, vibrant green, launching Vlad across the room. With that, he shed his human form, color fading away into a flurry of black and white. Floating in the air, Danny sped across the castle, through walls and floors, toward the forgotten closet where he’d left his backpack. Once it was in hand, Danny was moving toward the outside when a violet ectoblast hit him from behind. It knocked the teen out of the air, and he crashed into the wall.

“For the love of cheese logs, boy, _stop this_!” Vlad snarled, reaching out and pulling the younger ghost into a tight embrace. “You are _safe_ here, can’t you see! This mansion is the _safest_ place in the entire Earth for you. And I am _tired_ of having to expend resources tracking those who are after you and leading them on a merry chase _away_ from your location.”

Danny struggled, bucking and squirming and shoving himself as far into the hold that he could, until an elbow slammed into Vlad’s face. The man cursed, loosening his hold on the teen enough that Danny could free himself, flying far away. It had been too soon to return; he needed to be elsewhere.

Two weeks later, when Danny returned to the castle, he found a new box in the closet, wrapped a shiny red and sealed with green ribbon, and covered with far less dust than the other contents of the tiny room. Inside was an electric razor with the note.

 _Instructions are inside. Do start shaving, that beard makes you look like a hobo, and we_ do _have a standard to maintain._

_Merry Christmas_

_Vlad_


	6. Chapter 6

Manhattan smelled like smoke, Sam noted with a curl of the nose. Everywhere she looked, there were signs of the homeless – cardboard boxes cut up and flattened into beds or makeshift roofs, and every now and then she spotted someone laying in the shadow of a building, using their coat as a blanket. Everyone looked underfed, and distrusting of her – and why wouldn’t they, she reasoned, walked down the streets in jeans that weren’t at all ripped or faded, wearing a plush fleece-lined coat that looked like it had just come off the rack. Slung over her shoulders was a backpack full of notebooks and textbooks, and clutched in her hands was her keychain, her keys sticking out between her fingers in a makeshift set of brass knuckles. She hated having to do that, but it was necessary in the neighborhood she’d insisted on living in (not to mention it was a close walk onto campus, barely five minutes).

One of the homeless – a new guy (although he looked familiar in a sense that made Sam think she knew him), about her height and looking sickly thin, with dark hair reaching down to his shoulders and the scruffy beginnings of a beard – stood up, hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans as he barreled right into her. Acting on reflex, she moved to rake her keys across his face, stopping his mugging, only to have the guy freeze as his eyes met hers. It was then that she realized why he seemed so familiar. “Danny?”

The guy – Danny Danny _Danny freaking Fenton_ – bolted, running back down the alley, and Sam gave chase. She was weighed down by her backpack, while he only had the clothes on his back, but she made sure not to let him out of her sight. It had been over three years since he’d abruptly vanished, the Fentons holding an empty-casket funeral while vowing to find the ghost that had taken their son from them. Most of Amity Park had believed that Danny had simply run off, unable to escape his family’s ghost-hunting legacy as ghosts started attacking the town. It wasn’t until his face made the national news, listed as the one behind a failed government sting operation in Las Vegas that had left several people injured and sent the entire city into a panic, that everyone realized that maybe a ghost really had taken Danny Fenton.

“Wait!” Sam slipped on a puddle, nearly falling onto one of the makeshift awnings – and an elderly woman – as she rounded a corner. Gritting her teeth, she called out again. “Wait, Danny!”

Danny skidded to a stop, tripping over his feet and splashing into a puddle. He looked back at her with wide eyes, like a cornered animal, backing away on his hands and knees. “Who are you? How do you know that name?!”

Sam stared at him in shock as she got back to her feet. “Danny… it’s me. Don’t you remember me?” There was faint recognition in Danny’s eyes, Sam saw, but it was like her vague recognition of him – it was entirely possible that he’d forgotten all about her, in all those years… doing what, exactly? “It’s Sam. From school? One half of your two best friends?”

Danny blinked, but there was still a lack of recognition in his eyes. “I don’t – I don’t have friends, or anyone who’s a best friend.”

She felt a pang in her chest, like an ice shard had taken root in the space between her heart and stomach. “Sam Manson, from high school, remember? I once pushed Ricky Marsh off the monkey bars because he threw up in my lunchbag?”

Danny’s eyebrows furrowed, like he was remembering something painful, and slowly shook his head. “That… that never happened.”

“Yeah, it did. Pushed him off and got sent home because he broke his arm.” Sam would know, since he’d never stopped talking about it. Danny shook his head.

“No, I mean it wasn’t – Ricky Marsh never threw up in your lunchbag.” Danny’s eyes squinted in remembrance. “It was… someone. I can’t remember his name. Glasses?”

“Mikey?” At the shake of Danny’s head, she tried again. “Well, it’s either him or Tucker–”

“Him!” Danny pointed a finger at her. “That’s who threw up in your lunchbag!”

“…oh, he owes me _so much_ for that.” Sam grumbled under her breath, then turned back to Danny. “So you remember that, but not me.”

“You… were the ultra-bicycle something?”

“Ultra-recyclo vegetarian.” Sam rolled her eyes, wondering how anyone could get it that wrong. “More importantly, what happened to you? National news painted you as a dangerous radical, not a sad hobo. And your parent–”

At that word Danny sprang to his feet, his hand glowing a bright green as he flung _something_ at Sam. It was bright green too, and the impact sent her falling over. She scrambled back to her feet, but Danny had vanished, and the glowing goop he’d flung at her was rapidly dissipating in the air, leaving no trace that either the man nor the goop had ever been there.

For days she tried to find him again, tried to figure out what it was that he’d hit her with, what had happened to him, but there was nothing. No trace remained that he’d ever been in New York – none of the shelters claimed to have seen him, and none of the people living on the street were ever honest about whether or not they’d seen Danny. Most claimed that there had never been anything about a guy matching Danny’s description.

It was like he’d become a ghost.


End file.
